Confederate States of America
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The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain. A new Confederate government was established in Febr

1864 State of the Union Address
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The 1864 State of the Union Address was given by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. It was presented to the United States Congress on December 6,1864 and it was given right before the end of the American Civil War. The most remarkable feature in the operations of the year is General Shermans attempted march of 300 miles direc

1.
Addresses

Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
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The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves was a law passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War forbidding the military to return escaped slaves to their owners. As Union armies entered Southern territory during the years of the War. Some commanders put the slaves to work digging entrenchments, building fortifications, such sl

Border states (American Civil War)
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In the context of the American Civil War, the border states were slave states that did not declare a secession from the Union and did not join the Confederacy. To their north they bordered free states of the Union and to their south they bordered Confederate slave states, of the 34 U. S. states in 1861, nineteen were free states and fifteen were sl

Confederate privateer
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The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Privateering was the practice of fitting ordinary private merchant vessels with modest armament, the captured vessels and cargo fell under customary prize rules at sea. Prizes

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CSS Mananass {1904 drawing}

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The Confederate States privateer Savannah

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Recapture of schooner Enchantress by USS Albatross

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Destruction of the privateer Petrel by the USS St. Lawrence.

Confiscation Act of 1861
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The bill passed the House of Representatives 60-48 and in the Senate 24-11. Abraham Lincoln was reluctant to sign the act, he felt that, in light of the Confederacys recent battlefield victories and he was also worried that it could be struck down as unconstitutional, which would set a precedent that might derail future attempts at emancipation. On

Doughface
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The term doughface originally referred to an actual mask made of dough, but came to be used in a disparaging context for someone, especially a politician, who is perceived to be pliable and moldable. In the 1847 Websters dictionary doughfacism was defined as the willingness to be led about by one of stronger mind, in the years leading up to the Ame

1.
Portrait and signature of John Randolph

Gettysburg Address
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The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U. S. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the best-known in American history. Abraham Lincolns carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, was one of the greatest and most influential statements of national purpose, Lincoln also redefined the Civil War as a struggle not just for the Unio

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One of the only two confirmed photos of Abraham Lincoln (sepia highlight) at Gettysburg, taken about noon, just after Lincoln arrived and some three hours before the speech. To Lincoln's right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.

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Letter of David Wills inviting Abraham Lincoln to make a few remarks, noting that Edward Everett would deliver the oration

Golden Circle (proposed country)
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The Golden Circle was an unrealized 1850s proposal by the Knights of the Golden Circle to expand the number of slave states. European colonialism and dependence on slavery had declined rapidly in some countries than others. The Spanish possessions of Cuba and Puerto Rico and the Empire of Brazil continued to depend on slavery, in the years prior to

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Map of the Golden Circle with its possible subdivisions. The rest of the United States is in light/pale-green because the Knights of the Golden Circle originally planned to have the US take over these areas.

Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1863
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The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act,12 Stat. The Senate amended the Houses bill, and the compromise reported out of the conference committee altered it to qualify the indemnity, Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on March 3,1863, and suspended habeas corpus under the authority it granted him six months later. The suspension was lifted with the i

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Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania introduced the bill.

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Habeas Corpus Suspension Act

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Sen. Lazarus W. Powell of Kentucky vehemently opposed the bill.

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Lambdin P. Milligan, one of those arrested while habeas corpus was suspended and tried by military commission

Hampton Roads Conference
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Lincoln and Seward reportedly offered some possibilities for compromise on the issue of slavery. The only concrete agreement reached was over prisoner-of-war exchanges, the Confederate commissioners immediately returned to Richmond at the conclusion of the conference. Confederate President Jefferson Davis announced that the North would not compromi

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CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens had been trying to end the war since 1863.

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John Campbell had already attempted once to broker peace between Confederates and the Lincoln administration.

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Francis Preston Blair traveled back and forth between Richmond, VA, and Washington, DC, relaying messages between Davis and Lincoln.

Issues of the American Civil War
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Issues of the American Civil War include questions about the name of the war, the tariff, states rights and the nature of Abraham Lincolns war goals. For more on naming, see Naming the American Civil War, the question of how important the tariff was in causing the war stems from the Nullification Crisis, which was South Carolinas attempt to nullify

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Abraham Lincoln

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Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy

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Frederick Douglass

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
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Lincoln was the third American president to die in office, and the first to be murdered. An unsuccessful attempt had made on Andrew Jackson 30 years prior, in 1835. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the stage actor John Wilkes Booth. By simultaneously eliminating the top three people in the administration, Booth and his co

3.
This photograph (top) of Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address is the only known photograph of the event. Lincoln stands in the center, with papers in his hand. John Wilkes Booth is visible in the photograph, in the top row right of center (White, The Eloquent President). The second photo highlights both Lincoln and Booth from the photo above.

Marshall Conferences

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Pre-War

Missouri secession
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During the American Civil War, the secession of Missouri was controversial because of the disputed status of the state of Missouri. This unusual situation, which existed to some degree in the states of Kentucky. At the beginning of the war, the governor of Missouri was Claiborne Fox Jackson, at his inauguration Jackson requested the authorization o

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View of Neosho's town square. The building directly opposite was the site of the provisional Confederate state capitol building.

Nullification Crisis
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It ensued after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state. The US suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was particularly affected, many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on th

Opposition to the American Civil War
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Popular opposition to the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, was widespread. The main opposition came from Copperheads, who were Southern sympathizers in the Midwest, Irish Catholics after 1862 opposed the war, and rioted in the New York Draft Riots of 1863. The Democratic Party was deeply split, in 1861 most Democrats supported th

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Opposition to wars or aspects of war

Ordinance of Secession
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The Ordinance of Secession was the document drafted and ratified in 1860 and 1861 by each of the southern states formally seceding from the United States of America. Each state ratified its own ordinance of secession, typically by means of a special convention delegation or by a general referendum, the seceded states formed the Confederate States o

Origins of the American Civil War
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While most historians agree that conflicts over slavery caused the war, they disagree sharply regarding which kinds of conflict—ideological, economic, political, or social—were most important. Another explanation for secession, and the subsequent formation of the Confederacy, was white Southern nationalism, the primary reason for the North to rejec

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The Battle of Fort Sumter was a Confederate attack on a U.S. fort in South Carolina in April 1861. It was the opening battle of the war.

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President Andrew Jackson viewed South Carolina's attempts to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 as being tantamount to treason. The issue of states' rights would play a large role leading up to the Civil War near to 30 years later.

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Violent repression of slaves was a common theme in abolitionist literature in the North. Above, this famous 1863 photo of a slave, Gordon, deeply scarred from whipping by an overseer was distributed by abolitionists to illustrate what they saw as the barbarism of Southern society.

Peace Conference of 1861
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The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of 131 leading United States politicians in February 1861, at the Willards Hotel in Washington, D. C. on the eve of the American Civil War. The success of President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party in the elections of 1860 led to a flurry of political activity. In much of the South, elections were

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Washington D.C.'s Willard's Hotel (1853) was the site of the unsuccessful 1861 Peace Conference

Reconstruction Amendments
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The amendments were important in implementing the Reconstruction of the American South after the war. The Fourteenth Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons, the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. T

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A political cartoon of Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln, 1865, entitled "The Rail Splitter At Work Repairing the Union." The caption reads (Johnson): Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever. (Lincoln): A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended.

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Text of the 13th Amendment

Slave states and free states
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Historically, slavery had been practiced in all the British colonies. The division between slave and free states began during the American Revolution, slavery was a divisive issue and was the primary cause of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United

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Division of state during the Civil War. Blue represents Union states, including those admitted during the war; light blue represents border states; red represents Confederate states. Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War.

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An animation showing the free/slave status of U.S. states and territories, 1789-1861 (see also: separate yearly maps below). The Civil War began in 1861. Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, effective December 1865.

Slavery in the United States
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Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By the time of the American Revolution, the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry, when the United States Constitution wa

Union (American Civil War)
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The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States, or the Confederacy. All of the Unions states provided soldiers for the U. S. Army, the Border states played a major role as a supply base for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The Northeast provided the resources for a mechanized war producing large quantitie

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Charleston Mercury Secession Broadside, 1860 - "The Union" had been a way to refer to the American Republic

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Map of the division of the states during the American Civil War. Blue (the U.S. Army's uniform color) indicates the Union states; light blue represents Union states which permitted slavery (border states). Red represents states in rebellion, also known as the Confederate states. Unshaded areas were U.S. territories.

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The Union had large advantages in men and resources at the start of the war; the ratio grew steadily in favor of the Union. In the chart, "cauc men" means white men.

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An anti-Lincoln Copperhead pamphlet from 1864

United States presidential election, 1864
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The United States presidential election of 1864 was the 20th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8,1864. In this match, incumbent president Republican Abraham Lincoln ran for re-election against Democratic candidate George B, McClellan, who tried to portray himself to the voters as the peace candidate who wanted to bring th

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All 233 electoral votes of the Electoral College 117 electoral votes needed to win

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Confederate States of America
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The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain. A new Confederate government was established in February 1861 before Lincoln took office in March, after the Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South – Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina – also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. The government of the United States rejected the claims of secession, the Civil War began with the April 12,1861, Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In spring 1865, after four years of fighting which led to an estimated 620,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered. Jefferson Davis later lamented that the Confederacy had disappeared in 1865, Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states, while the legitimate governments of those two states retained formal adherence to the Union. Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the Five Civilized Tribes located in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona. Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of law, while Delaware, though of divided loyalty. A Unionist government in parts of Virginia organized the new state of West Virginia. With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal, as Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed. Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers, teamsters and laborers, the most notable advance was Shermans March to the Sea in late 1864. Much of the Confederacys infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs, railroads, plantations in the path of Shermans forces were severely damaged. Internal movement became increasingly difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and these losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, materiel, and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Daviss administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, after four years of campaigning, Richmond was captured by Union forces in April 1865. Shortly afterward, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, President Davis was captured on May 10,1865, and jailed in preparation for a treason trial that was ultimately never held. The U. S. government began a process known as Reconstruction which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. By 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states, Confederate veterans had been temporarily disenfranchised by Reconstruction policy. The prewar South had many areas, the war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure

Confederate States of America
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Alexander Stephens CSA Vice President; old Whig friend of Lincoln; author of 'Cornerstone Speech'
Confederate States of America
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Flag (1861–1863)
Confederate States of America
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William L. Yancey, Alabama Fire-Eater, "The Orator of Secession".
Confederate States of America
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William Henry Gist, Governor of South Carolina, called the Secessionist Convention.

2.
1864 State of the Union Address
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The 1864 State of the Union Address was given by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. It was presented to the United States Congress on December 6,1864 and it was given right before the end of the American Civil War. The most remarkable feature in the operations of the year is General Shermans attempted march of 300 miles directly through the insurgent region

1864 State of the Union Address
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Addresses

3.
Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
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The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves was a law passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War forbidding the military to return escaped slaves to their owners. As Union armies entered Southern territory during the years of the War. Some commanders put the slaves to work digging entrenchments, building fortifications, such slaves came to be called contraband, a term emphasizing their status as captured enemy property. Other Army commanders — particularly Democrats — returned the slaves to their owners, Congress reacted by approving on March 13,1862 an act prohibiting the military from sending escaped slaves back into slavery. An Act to make an additional Article of War, and be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage. Emancipation Proclamation Confiscation Act of 1861 Contraband Slave Trade Acts

4.
Border states (American Civil War)
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In the context of the American Civil War, the border states were slave states that did not declare a secession from the Union and did not join the Confederacy. To their north they bordered free states of the Union and to their south they bordered Confederate slave states, of the 34 U. S. states in 1861, nineteen were free states and fifteen were slave states. Four slave states never declared a secession, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, also included as a border state during the war is West Virginia, which was formed from 50 counties of Virginia and became a new state in the Union in 1863. In the border states there was concern with military coercion of the Confederacy. Many if not a majority were definitely opposed to it, when Abraham Lincoln called for troops to march south to recapture Fort Sumter and other national possessions, southern Unionists were dismayed. Secessionists in Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were successful in getting those states to declare their secession from the U. S. in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, there were both pro-Confederate and pro-Union governments. West Virginia was formed in 1862–63 after unionists from the counties of Virginia then occupied by the Union Army had set up a loyalist state government of Virginia. Lincoln recognized this government and allowed them to divide the state, though every slave state except South Carolina contributed white battalions to both the Union and Confederate armies, the split was most severe in these border states. Sometimes men from the family fought on opposite sides. About 170,000 border state men fought in the Union Army and 86,000 in the Confederate Army, besides formal combat between regular armies, the border region saw large-scale guerrilla warfare and numerous violent raids, feuds, and assassinations. Violence was especially severe in eastern Kentucky and western Missouri, the single bloodiest episode was the 1863 Lawrence Massacre in Kansas, in which at least 150 civilian men and boys were killed. It was launched in retaliation for an earlier, smaller raid into Missouri by Union men from Kansas, with geographic, social, political, and economic connections to both the North and the South, the border states were critical to the outcome of the war. They are considered still to delineate the border that separates the North from the South. Reconstruction, as directed by Congress, did not apply to the states because they never seceded from the Union. They did undergo their own process of readjustment and political realignment after passage of amendments abolishing slavery and granting citizenship, after 1880 most of these jurisdictions were dominated by white Democrats, who passed laws to impose the Jim Crow system of legal segregation and second-class citizenship for blacks. Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the border states, of the states that were exempted from the Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia abolished slavery before the war ended. However, Delaware and Kentucky did not abolish slavery until December 1865, in the border states, slavery was already dying out in urban areas and the regions without cotton, especially in cities that were rapidly industrializing, such as Baltimore, Louisville, and St. Louis. By 1860, more than half of the African Americans in Delaware were free, some slaveholders made a profit by selling surplus slaves to traders for transport to the markets of the Deep South, where the demand was still high for field hands on cotton plantations

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Confederate privateer
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The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Privateering was the practice of fitting ordinary private merchant vessels with modest armament, the captured vessels and cargo fell under customary prize rules at sea. Prizes would be taken to the jurisdiction of a competent court, if the court found that the capture was legal, the ship and cargo would be forfeited and sold at a prize auction. The proceeds would be distributed among owners and crew according to a contractual arrangement, Privateers were also authorized to attack an enemys navy warships and then apply to the sponsoring government for direct monetary reward, usually gold or gold specie. In the early days of the war, enthusiasm for the Southern cause was high, not all of those who gained authorization actually went to sea, but the numbers of privateers were high enough to be a major concern for US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Many ships of the Union Navy were diverted from blockade duty in efforts to capture privateers, most of the privateers managed to remain free, but enough were caught that the owners and crew had to consider the risk seriously. The capture of the privateers Savannah and Jefferson Davis resulted in important court cases that did much to define the nature of the Civil War itself, initial enthusiasm could not be sustained. Privateers found it difficult to deliver their captures to Confederate courts, by the end of the first year of the war, the risks far exceeded the benefits in the minds of most owners and crews. The Civil War was the last time a belligerent power seriously resorted to privateering, the practice had already been outlawed among European countries by the Declaration of Paris. Following the Civil War, the United States agreed to abide by the Declaration of Paris, following the 12 April 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, President Abraham Lincoln called for raising 75,000 volunteers from state militia to put down the rebellion. In response, on the 17th of April, Confederate President Jefferson Davis called both for raising troops and for the issuance of letters of marque, with no navy yet established, they turned to the alternative of privateering. The word privateer applies to any citizen in the world who raises a ship. Although specifically allowing attacks upon enemy warships, privateers are typically amateurs employed against commercial shipping because armed navy ships are likely to fight back effectively. Privateering is authorized by the issuance of letters of marque and reprisal by a sponsoring government and it was explicitly allowed by the Confederate Constitution the words of which were copied almost directly from the American Constitution. With a mission to prey upon commercial vessels of the enemy, their pay would consist of the value of seized ships and cargoes, also known as prizes, when the war began, legitimate privateers could legally clear prizes in neutral ports, which were literally worldwide. Prior to the hostilities between the North and South, the majority of European maritime powers had declared the practice of privateering to be illegal by the Declaration of Paris. According to the treaty, privateers of signatory nations were strictly illegal and if caught they could be seized by the ships of any signatory nation. However, they were not exactly the same as pirates, Privateers enjoyed limited legal status if they did not murder and if they behaved generally according to the laws of their sponsoring non-signatory government

6.
Confiscation Act of 1861
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The bill passed the House of Representatives 60-48 and in the Senate 24-11. Abraham Lincoln was reluctant to sign the act, he felt that, in light of the Confederacys recent battlefield victories and he was also worried that it could be struck down as unconstitutional, which would set a precedent that might derail future attempts at emancipation. Only personal lobbying by several powerful Senators persuaded Lincoln to sign the legislation, Lincoln gave Attorney General Edward Bates no instructions on enforcing the bill. With respect to slaves, the act authorized court proceedings to strip their owners of any claim to them, as a result of this ambiguity, these slaves came under Union lines as property in the care of the U. S. government. Upon hearing of Hunters action one week later, Lincoln immediately countermanded the order, before the act was passed, Benjamin Franklin Butler had been the first Union general to declare slaves as contraband. Some other Northern commanders followed this precedent, while officers from the states were more likely to return escaped slaves to their masters. The Confiscation Act was an attempt to set a consistent policy throughout the army, an Act to confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary Purposes. APPROVED, August 6,18611862 Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves Emancipation Proclamation Slave Trade Acts

7.
Doughface
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The term doughface originally referred to an actual mask made of dough, but came to be used in a disparaging context for someone, especially a politician, who is perceived to be pliable and moldable. In the 1847 Websters dictionary doughfacism was defined as the willingness to be led about by one of stronger mind, in the years leading up to the American Civil War, doughface was used to describe Northerners who favored the Southern position in political disputes. Typically it was applied to a Northern Democrat who was often allied with the Southern Democrats than with the majority of Northern Democrats. The expression was coined by John Randolph, a Representative from Virginia, Randolph had no respect for northerners who voted with the South, considering them, in historian Leonard Richards words, weak men, timid men, half-baked men. Randolph said of them, They were scared at their own dough faces—yes, John Randolph may actually have said doe faces instead of dough faces, the pronunciation would have been identical, and Randolph was a hunter, sometimes bringing his hunting dog with him to Congress. Ascribing doe faces to those he despised would have been Randolphs comment on the weakness of these men, in 1820 seventeen doughfaces made the Missouri Compromise possible. In 1836 sixty northern congressmen voted with the South in the passage of a gag rule to prevent anti-slavery petitions from being received in the House of Representatives. In 1847 twenty-seven northerners joined with the South in opposing the Wilmot Proviso, by 1854 the South had changed its position on the Missouri Compromise and fifty-eight northerners supported its repeal in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. While the term originated in the House, doughfaces eventually had their greatest influence in the United States Senate, the clearest case came in the Wilmot Proviso votes of 1846 and 1847 when the Senate rejected the Proviso after its passage in the House. Richards has classified 320 congressmen in the period from 1820 to 1860 as doughfaces, the two U. S. Presidents preceding Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, were both commonly referred to as doughfaces. Stephen A. Douglas was severely criticized by Lincoln as the worst doughface of them all, other such doughfaces were Charles G. Atherton, the author of the gag rule, and Jesse D. Bright, the only northern senator expelled for treason during the Civil War. The ultimate weakness of the doughfaces, from a Southern perspective, at the time of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, popular sovereignty was accepted by both the northern and southern Democrats as the proper states rights position. It protected against federal consolidation and insured the equality of the states to compete in the territories, Douglas and many northern Democrats remained consistent through 1860 in their support for popular sovereignty. They now insisted on Federal intervention to protect slavery in the territories, Northern Democrats such as Douglas could not go that far with the South. The doughface, as an agent for sectional compromise, had outlived his usefulness. In Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. s book The Vital Center, he applied the term to modern liberalism in the United States, copperheads Origins of the American Civil War Morrison, Michael A. Slavery and the American West, The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny, the Slave Power, The Free North and Southern Domination 1780–1860. ISBN 0-8071-2537-7 The Northern Doughface, A Case Study in Historical Relevance A Presidential Doughface

Doughface
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Portrait and signature of John Randolph

8.
Gettysburg Address
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The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U. S. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the best-known in American history. Abraham Lincolns carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, was one of the greatest and most influential statements of national purpose, Lincoln also redefined the Civil War as a struggle not just for the Union, but also for the principle of human equality. Despite the speechs prominent place in the history and popular culture of the United States, the five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address in Lincolns hand differ in a number of details, and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech. Following the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1–3,1863, reburial of Union soldiers from the Gettysburg Battlefield graves began on October 17, Lincolns address followed the oration by Edward Everett, who subsequently included a copy of the Gettysburg Address in his 1864 book about the event. During the train trip from Washington, D. C. to Gettysburg on November 18, on the morning of November 19, Lincoln mentioned to John Nicolay that he was dizzy. Hay noted that during the speech Lincolns face had a ghastly color, after the speech, when Lincoln boarded the 6,30 pm train for Washington, D. C. he was feverish and weak, with a severe headache. A protracted illness followed, which included a vesicular rash and was diagnosed as a case of smallpox. It thus seems likely that Lincoln was in the prodromal period of smallpox when he delivered the Gettysburg address. The program organized for that day by Wills and his committee included, Music, by Birgfelds Band Prayer, by Reverend T. H. Stockton, D. D. Music, by the Marine Band, directed by Francis Scala Oration, by Hon. Edward Everett Music, but the duty to which you have called me must be performed, —grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy. Lengthy dedication addresses like Everetts were common at cemeteries in this era, the tradition began in 1831 when Justice Joseph Story delivered the dedication address at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Those addresses often linked cemeteries to the mission of Union, shortly after Everetts well-received remarks, Lincoln spoke for only a few minutes. With a few appropriate remarks, he was able to summarize his view of the war in just ten sentences, of these versions, the Bliss version, written well after the speech as a favor for a friend, is viewed by many as the standard text. Its text differs, however, from the versions prepared by Lincoln before. It is the version to which Lincoln affixed his signature. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war and we have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, but, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground

Gettysburg Address
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One of the only two confirmed photos of Abraham Lincoln (sepia highlight) at Gettysburg, taken about noon, just after Lincoln arrived and some three hours before the speech. To Lincoln's right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.
Gettysburg Address
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Letter of David Wills inviting Abraham Lincoln to make a few remarks, noting that Edward Everett would deliver the oration
Gettysburg Address
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Union soldiers dead at Gettysburg, photographed by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, July 5–6, 1863
Gettysburg Address
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Edward Everett delivered a two-hour oration before Lincoln's few minutes of dedicatory remarks.

9.
Golden Circle (proposed country)
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The Golden Circle was an unrealized 1850s proposal by the Knights of the Golden Circle to expand the number of slave states. European colonialism and dependence on slavery had declined rapidly in some countries than others. The Spanish possessions of Cuba and Puerto Rico and the Empire of Brazil continued to depend on slavery, in the years prior to the American Civil War, the rise of support for abolition of slavery was one of several divisive issues in the United States. The slave population there had continued to grow due to increase even after the ban on international trade. Proponents argued that their proposed Golden Circle would bring together jurisdictions that depended on slavery, membership increased slowly until 1859 and reached its height in 1860. The membership, scattered from New York to California and into Latin America, was never large, some Knights of the Golden Circle active in northern states, such as Illinois, were accused of anti-Union activities after the American Civil War began. The Golden Circle was to be centered in Havana and was 2,400 miles in diameter and it included northern South America, most of Mexico, all of Central America, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, most other Caribbean islands, and the American South. In the United States, the northern border roughly coincided with the Mason-Dixon line. St. Louis, Mexico City, and Panama City, the alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee and the similarly themed movie C. S. A. The Confederate States of America explore the results of a Southern victory in the Civil War, both works posit the Golden Circle as a plan enacted after the war. Both also have the Confederacy take over all of South America rather than the portion of the continent. All of Mexico Movement American imperialism Antebellum South Manifest Destiny Republic of Sonora Slavery in the United States Slave Power May, the Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854-1861. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, an Authentic Exposition of the “K. G. C. ”“Knights of the Golden Circle, ” or, A History of Secession from 1834 to 1861, by A Member of the Order. Donald S. Frazier, Blood & Treasure, Confederate Empire in the Southwest, warren Getler and Bob Brewer, Rebel Gold, One Man’s Quest to Crack the Code Behind the Secret Treasure of the Confederacy. The Private Journal and Diary of John H. Surratt, The Conspirator, joseph Holt, Report of the Judge Advocate General on “The Order of American Knights, ” alias “The Sons of Liberty. ”A Western Conspiracy in aid of the Southern Rebellion. James D. Horan, Confederate Agent, A Discovery in History, Jesse Lee James, Jesse James and the Lost Cause. Records of the KGC Convention,1860, Raleigh, N. C, gun Show on the Net Website

Golden Circle (proposed country)
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Map of the Golden Circle with its possible subdivisions. The rest of the United States is in light/pale-green because the Knights of the Golden Circle originally planned to have the US take over these areas.

10.
Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1863
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The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act,12 Stat. The Senate amended the Houses bill, and the compromise reported out of the conference committee altered it to qualify the indemnity, Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on March 3,1863, and suspended habeas corpus under the authority it granted him six months later. The suspension was lifted with the issuance of Proclamation 148 by Andrew Johnson. The military situation made it dangerous to call Congress into session, Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States, therefore authorized his military commanders to suspend the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D. C. and Philadelphia. Numerous individuals were arrested, including John Merryman and a number of Baltimore police commissioners, the Presidents advisers said the circuit courts ruling was invalid and it was ignored. When Congress was called into session, July 4,1861. Early in the session, Sen. Sen, on July 17,1861, Sen. Trumbull introduced a bill to suppress insurrection and sedition which included a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus upon Congresss authority. He was imprisoned in Fort McHenry, which, as he noted, was the fort where the Star Spangled Banner had been waving oer the land of the free in his grandfathers song. In early 1862 Lincoln took a back from the suspension of habeas corpus controversy. On February 14, he ordered all political prisoners released, with exceptions and offered them amnesty for past treason or disloyalty. Mays bill passed the House in summer 1862, and it would later be included in the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, which would require actual indictments for suspected traitors. He also said, I approved them then, and I approve them now, and this bill passed the House over relatively weak opposition on December 8,1862. When it came time for the Senate to consider Rep. Stevens indemnity bill, however, unlike Stevens bill, it did not suggest that the presidents suspension of habeas corpus upon his own authority had been legal. The Senate passed its version of the bill on January 28,1863, the House appointed Thaddeus Stevens, John Bingham, and George H. Pendleton to the conference committee. The Senate agreed to a conference the day and appointed Lyman Trumbull, Jacob Collamer. Stevens, Bingham, Trumbull, and Collamer were all Republicans, Willey was a Unionist, on February 27, the conference committee issued its report. The result was a new bill authorizing the explicit suspension of habeas corpus. In the House, several members left, depriving the chamber of a quorum, the Sergeant-at-Arms was dispatched to compel attendance and several representatives were fined for their absence

11.
Hampton Roads Conference
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Lincoln and Seward reportedly offered some possibilities for compromise on the issue of slavery. The only concrete agreement reached was over prisoner-of-war exchanges, the Confederate commissioners immediately returned to Richmond at the conclusion of the conference. Confederate President Jefferson Davis announced that the North would not compromise, Lincoln drafted an amnesty agreement based on terms discussed at the Conference, but met with opposition from his Cabinet. John Campbell continued to advocate for an agreement and met again with Lincoln after the fall of Richmond on April 2. In 1864, pressure mounted for both sides to seek a settlement to end the long and devastating Civil War. Several people had sought to broker a North–South peace treaty in 1864, francis Preston Blair, a personal friend of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, had unsuccessfully encouraged Lincoln to make a diplomatic visit to Richmond. Lincoln asked Blair to wait until Savannah had been captured, Davis was pressed for options as the Confederacy faced collapse and defeat. Peace movements in the South had been active since the beginning of the war, Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the CSA, had by 1863 become an active advocate for ending the war. Stephens had almost begun negotiations with Lincoln in July 1863, Stephens addressed the Confederate Senate on January 6,1865, urging peace talks with the North. Some Confederate legislators agreed with Stephens and began to agitate for negotiations, John Campbell, another of the peace commissioners, had also opposed secession. Campbell served on the United States Supreme Court from 1853 to 1861 and he stayed on for the spring term of 1861 and supported the Corwin Amendment to protect slavery from federal intervention. Hoping to prevent a war, Samuel Nelson enlisted Campbell to help broker negotiations over Fort Sumter, on March 15, Campbell relayed to Martin Jenkins Crawford a supposed promise from Seward that the federal government would evacuate Fort Sumter within five days. Lincoln had already ordered the fort resupplied, by April 12 diplomacy had evidently failed and the Battle of Fort Sumter began. Campbell resigned his position on the court and went South, fearing he would be persecuted as a Union sympathizer in his home state of Alabama, he moved instead to New Orleans. Campbell declined a number of positions in the CSA government, for the duration of the job, Campbell was criticized for trying to limit the scope of wartime conscription. By late 1864, he was pushing again for an end to the war, but when I look back upon the events of the winter, I find that I was incessantly employed in making these facts known and to no result. Lincoln would clearly insist on full sovereignty of the Union, Slavery posed a more difficult problem. The Republican platform in 1864 had explicitly endorsed abolition, but pushing too hard on the issue might offend mainstream politicians

Hampton Roads Conference
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The Conference took place on the River Queen, near Union-controlled Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia.
Hampton Roads Conference
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CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens had been trying to end the war since 1863.
Hampton Roads Conference
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John Campbell had already attempted once to broker peace between Confederates and the Lincoln administration.
Hampton Roads Conference
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Francis Preston Blair traveled back and forth between Richmond, VA, and Washington, DC, relaying messages between Davis and Lincoln.

12.
Issues of the American Civil War
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Issues of the American Civil War include questions about the name of the war, the tariff, states rights and the nature of Abraham Lincolns war goals. For more on naming, see Naming the American Civil War, the question of how important the tariff was in causing the war stems from the Nullification Crisis, which was South Carolinas attempt to nullify a tariff and lasted from 1828 to 1832. The tariff was low after 1846, and the issue faded into the background by 1860 when secession began. States rights was the justification for nullification and later secession, the most controversial right claimed by Southern states was the alleged right of Southerners to spread slavery into territories owned by the United States. Historians generally agree that economic conflicts were not a cause of the war. When numerous groups tried at the last minute in 1860–61 to find a compromise to avert war, aside from the economic institution of slavery, no other economic issues brought about the Civil War. The South, Midwest and Northeast had quite different word structures and they traded with each other and each became more prosperous by staying in the Union, a point many businessmen made in 1860–61. Beard in the 1920s made a highly influential argument to the effect that these caused the war. He saw the industrial Northeast forming a coalition with the agrarian Midwest against the Plantation South, critics pointed out that his image of a unified Northeast was incorrect because the region was highly diverse with many different competing economic interests. In 1860–61, most business interests in the Northeast opposed war, after 1950, only a few mainstream historians accepted the Beard interpretation, though it was accepted by libertarian economists. As Historian Kenneth Stamp—who abandoned Beardism after 1950, sums up the scholarly consensus, the Southerners in Congress set the federal tariffs on imported goods, especially the low tariff rates in 1857, this led to resentment by Northern industrialists. Controversy over whether slavery was at the root of the issue dates back at least as far as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. During the debate at Alton, Lincoln said that slavery was the cause of the Nullification crisis over a tariff. John C. Calhoun was an owner who helped develop the positive good theory of slavery. Also, Calhoun said that slavery was the cause of the Nullification Crisis, while most leaders of Southern secession in 1860 mentioned slavery as the cause, Robert Rhett was a free trade extremist who opposed the tariff. However, Rhett was also a slavery extremist who wanted the Constitution of the Confederacy to legalize the African Slave Trade, Republicans also saw support for a Homestead Act, a higher tariff and a transcontinental railroad as a flank attack on the slave power. There were enough Southern Senators in the U. S. Senate to keep the tariff low after 1846, even when the tariff was higher three decades before the war, only South Carolina revolted, and the issue was nullification, not secession. The tariff was much lower by 1861, when the Confederacy was formed it set a very high 15% tariff on all imports, including imports from the United States

Issues of the American Civil War
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Abraham Lincoln
Issues of the American Civil War
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Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy
Issues of the American Civil War
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Frederick Douglass

13.
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
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Lincoln was the third American president to die in office, and the first to be murdered. An unsuccessful attempt had made on Andrew Jackson 30 years prior, in 1835. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the stage actor John Wilkes Booth. By simultaneously eliminating the top three people in the administration, Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to disrupt the United States government. As the President was watching the play, Booth shot Lincoln from behind at a distance of three or four feet, hitting him in the back of the head. At 7,22 a. m. the following day, the rest of the conspirators plot failed, Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Atzerodt, Johnsons would-be assassin, lost his nerve and fled. Booth made an escape, resulting in a lengthy manhunt that ended in his death. Several other conspirators were tried and hanged. The funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln was a period of extended national mourning, John Wilkes Booth, originally from Maryland, was a proud Southerner and an outspoken Confederate sympathizer. In late 1860, Booth was initiated in the pro-Confederate Knights of the Golden Circle in Baltimore, born into a family of well-known stage actors, Booth had become a famous actor and a nationally recognized celebrity in his own right by the time of the assassination. In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, the general of all the Unions armies. As harsh as it may have been on the prisoners of both sides, Grant realized the exchange was prolonging the war by returning soldiers to the outnumbered and manpower-starved South. John Wilkes Booth conceived a plan to kidnap President Lincoln and deliver him to the Confederate Army, Booth recruited Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael OLaughlen, Lewis Powell, and John Surratt to help him. Surratts mother, Mary Surratt, left her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland and moved to a house in Washington, while Booth and Lincoln were not personally acquainted, Lincoln had seen Booth in The Marble Heart at Fords on November 9,1863. Subsequently Lincoln sent a invitation backstage inviting Booth to visit the White House, afterwards, actor Frank Mordaunt stated that Booth evaded multiple invitations from the president. Lincoln was an admirer of the man who assassinated him and that actor was John Wilkes Booth. Booth attended Lincolns second inauguration on March 4,1865, as the invited guest of his secret fiancée Lucy Hale, daughter of John P. Hale, soon to become United States Ambassador to Spain. Booth afterwards wrote in his diary, What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, on March 17,1865, Booth informed his conspirators that Lincoln would be attending a play, Still Waters Run Deep, at Campbell Military Hospital

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
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John Wilkes Booth
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
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The Assassination of President Lincoln (Currier & Ives, 1865), from left to right: MajorHenry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth This print gives the impression that Rathbone saw Booth enter the box and had already risen as Booth fired his weapon. In reality, Rathbone was unaware of Booth's approach and reacted after the shot was fired.
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
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This photograph (top) of Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address is the only known photograph of the event. Lincoln stands in the center, with papers in his hand. John Wilkes Booth is visible in the photograph, in the top row right of center (White, The Eloquent President). The second photo highlights both Lincoln and Booth from the photo above.
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

14.
Missouri secession
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During the American Civil War, the secession of Missouri was controversial because of the disputed status of the state of Missouri. This unusual situation, which existed to some degree in the states of Kentucky. At the beginning of the war, the governor of Missouri was Claiborne Fox Jackson, at his inauguration Jackson requested the authorization of a state constitutional convention in order to consider the relationship between Missouri and the Federal government. A special referendum approved the Missouri constitutional convention and delegates were elected, contrary to Jacksons expectations, no avowed secessionist delegates were elected. In early February, United States Army Captain Nathaniel Lyon, a member of the Radical Republicans, was transferred to Missouri. The arsenal was under the command of Brevet Major Peter V. Hagner, both men were considered moderates on the issues of slavery and sectional conflict by the James Buchanan administration. Lyon by contrast had a reputation as a political radical. The St. Louis Arsenal, containing one of the largest caches of supplies in the West, was sought by both the Union and Confederate armies. Several plots to control of its arms were initiated in early 1861 by paramilitary organizations from both sides. The secessionist group was called the St. Louis Minute Men, a Radical Republican paramilitary group from the 1860 campaign known as the Wide Awakes was also enlisted with plans to take the arsenal. The Wide Awakes were organized under great secrecy by Congressman Frank Blair, Lyon was also an old political ally of Blair and secretly supported the Wide Awakes plot to seize the arsenal. After Lincoln called for Union troops in preparation for the Civil War, up until that point, the Wide Awakes had limited arms, consisting only of what they successfully smuggled into Missouri from Illinois. As of March however, Hagner still supervised the arsenal and Harney still commanded the Department of the West, neither Hagner nor Harney were supportive of Lyons plans with the Wide Awakes, and Hagner denied Lyons attempts to release the arsenals weapons to them. As soon as Lincoln was inaugurated, Lyon began exerting pressure on the president through the politically connected Blair to have named the new commander of the arsenal. After Hagner denied Lyons request, the ambitious captain threatened to pitch him in the river, Blair promptly did so and, as an added assurance, secured orders for Harney to travel to Washington for consultations with the War Department. With Lyons control of the arsenal now unimpeded, he opened its gates to several Wide Awake reinforcements around midnight on April 21. The deaths at St. Louis set off the first serious push for secession in Missouri and was condemned by the state legislature and Price. Both had previously resisted Jacksons call for secession and requests for more control over the state militia, after the massacre though, the legislature authorized Jackson to reorganize the militia into the Missouri State Guard and appointed Price as its commander

Missouri secession
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View of Neosho's town square. The building directly opposite was the site of the provisional Confederate state capitol building.

15.
Nullification Crisis
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It ensued after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state. The US suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was particularly affected, many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the national tariff policy that developed after the War of 1812 to promote American manufacturing over its European competition. The controversial and highly protective Tariff of 1828 was enacted into law during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, the tariff was opposed in the South and parts of New England. By 1828, South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue and its opponents expected that the election of Jackson as President would result in the tariff being significantly reduced. In Washington, a split on the issue occurred between Jackson and Vice President John C. Calhoun, a native South Carolinian and the most effective proponent of the theory of state nullification. On July 14,1832, before Calhoun had resigned the Vice Presidency in order to run for the Senate where he could effectively defend nullification, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of 1832. This compromise tariff received the support of most northerners and half of the southerners in Congress, military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated by the state. The South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 15,1833, the crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. The tariff rates were reduced and stayed low to the satisfaction of the South, by the 1850s the issues of the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the threat of the Slave Power became the central issues in the nation. Later in the decade the Alien and Sedition Acts led to the states rights position being articulated in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. ”The key sentence, and the word nullification was used in supplementary Resolutions passed by Kentucky in 1799. He was chairman of a committee of the Virginia Legislature which issued a book-length Report on the Resolutions of 1798 and this asserted that the state did not claim legal force. The declarations in such cases are expressions of opinion, unaccompanied by other effect than what they may produce upon opinion, the opinions of the judiciary, on the other hand, are carried into immediate effect by force. But, the four presidential terms spanning the period from 1800 to 1817 did little to advance the cause of states’ rights and much to weaken it. ”Over Jefferson’s opposition, the power of the federal judiciary, led by Federalist Chief Justice John Marshall, increased. Jefferson expanded federal powers with the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, opposition to the War of 1812 was centered in New England. Delegates to a convention in Hartford, Connecticut met in December 1814 to consider a New England response to Madison’s war policy, the debate allowed many radicals to argue the cause of states’ rights and state sovereignty. In the end, moderate voices dominated and the product was not secession or nullification. After the conclusion of the War of 1812 Sean Wilentz notes, This spirit of nationalism was linked to the tremendous growth and economic prosperity of this post war era

16.
Opposition to the American Civil War
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Popular opposition to the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, was widespread. The main opposition came from Copperheads, who were Southern sympathizers in the Midwest, Irish Catholics after 1862 opposed the war, and rioted in the New York Draft Riots of 1863. The Democratic Party was deeply split, in 1861 most Democrats supported the war, but with the growth of the Copperhead movement, the party increasingly split down the middle. It nominated George McClellan a War Democrat in 1864 but gave him an anti-war platform, in terms of Congress the opposition was nearly powerless—and indeed in most states. In Indiana and Illinois pro-war governors circumvented anti-war legislatures elected in 1862, for 30 years after the war the Democrats carried the burden of having opposed the martyred Lincoln, the salvation of the Union and the destruction of slavery. The beginnings of opposition to the American Civil War were stirred in at the beginning of the war, in states such as New Jersey, New York, and the rest of New England, smatterings of people who did not favor the war arose. This was especially evident in the state of Connecticut, when President Abraham Lincoln was elected as President-elect, he left several democratic Congressmen split from their party. These congressmen were William W. Eaton of Hartford, E. B, Godsell of Bridgeport, James Gallagher of New Haven, Ralph I. Ingersoll, and Thomas H. Seymour of Hartford, however, Vallandigham, Cox, Carpenter, and Fowler’s grounds for opposing the war were against Lincoln’s desire to abolish slavery. They also criticized the emancipation proclamation, saying that it changed the intentions of the North against the South from preservation of the Union to abolition of slavery. He did not explain how this would be executed, and no agreement was reached, interestingly, Vallandigham seemed to take sides with the South. This attempt by Vallandigham was desperate and was not successful in creating such a revolution, in that, it was not a major opposition movement. Southern peace men were also prominent war opposition figures during the war, H. S. Foote of Tennessee was a strong supporter of the peace movement. In 1864, Foote resigned from the Confederate Congress and tried to make peace with Lincoln, Farrar, a wealthy Southern planter, was also a supporter of the peace movement. Farrar and Foote shared Vallandigham’s views on the cause of the war, Farrar, Foote, Fowler, Cox, Carpenter, and Vallandigham concluded that the Union could have been preserved and the war ended if extremists in the north and south had not spurred a controversy. However, other forms of opposition to the war took place in a not so peaceful fashion, Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation created protest in the Union. General McClellan felt that the emancipation would rapidly “disintegrate” the Union Army, since the goal of what the soldiers strived for, others felt the emancipation was unconstitutional. A Pennsylvania corporal said he feared if the Constitution was stretched with the emancipation

Opposition to the American Civil War
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Opposition to wars or aspects of war

17.
Ordinance of Secession
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The Ordinance of Secession was the document drafted and ratified in 1860 and 1861 by each of the southern states formally seceding from the United States of America. Each state ratified its own ordinance of secession, typically by means of a special convention delegation or by a general referendum, the seceded states formed the Confederate States of America. During the Civil War, the states of Missouri and Kentucky had competing confederate, missouris ordinance was approved by a legislative session called by Claiborne Fox Jackson, the pro-confederate governor. Kentuckys was approved by a convention of 200 people representing 65 counties of the state, the Confederacy officially ceded both of these states in 1862, though they were contested throughout the war. Virginias ordinance was approved by a referendum but rejected by 26 counties in the north and west of the state, georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas also issued separate declarations of causes, in which they explained their reasons for secession. Virginias Ordinance of Secession Text and original document from the Library of Virginia, virginias Ordinance of Secession Text and original documents from the Library of Virginia and National Archives. Texas Declaration of Causes, Feb.2,1861 Text of Declaration of Causes from Texas archives

18.
Origins of the American Civil War
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While most historians agree that conflicts over slavery caused the war, they disagree sharply regarding which kinds of conflict—ideological, economic, political, or social—were most important. Another explanation for secession, and the subsequent formation of the Confederacy, was white Southern nationalism, the primary reason for the North to reject secession was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism. Most of the debate is about the first question, as to why some southern states decided to secede, Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election without being on the ballot in ten of the Southern states. His victory triggered declarations of secession by seven states of the Deep South. They formed the Confederate States of America after Lincoln was elected, nationalists refused to recognize the declarations of secession. No foreign countrys government ever recognized the Confederacy, the U. S. government under President James Buchanan refused to relinquish its forts that were in territory claimed by the Confederacy. The war itself began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter, as a panel of historians emphasized in 2011, while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war. Thus they were committed to values that could not logically be reconciled, other important factors were partisan politics, abolitionism, Southern nationalism, Northern nationalism, expansionism, economics and modernization in the Antebellum period. The United States had become a nation of two distinct regions and their growth was fed by a high birth rate and large numbers of European immigrants, especially British, Irish and Germans. The heavily rural South had few cities of any size, Slave owners controlled politics and the economy, although about 75% of white Southern families owned no slaves and usually were engaged in subsistence agriculture. Overall, the Northern population was growing more quickly than the Southern population. By the time the 1860 election occurred, the heavily agricultural southern states as a group had fewer Electoral College votes than the rapidly industrializing northern states, Abraham Lincoln was able to win the 1860 Presidential election without even being on the ballot in ten Southern states. Southerners felt a loss of federal concern for Southern pro-slavery political demands, after the Mexican–American War of 1846 to 1848, the issue of slavery in the new territories led to the Compromise of 1850. While the compromise averted an immediate crisis, it did not permanently resolve the issue of the Slave Power. Part of the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, requiring that Northerners assist Southerners in reclaiming fugitive slaves, which many Northerners found to be extremely offensive. The compromise that was reached outraged many Northerners, and led to the formation of the Republican Party, the industrializing North and agrarian Midwest became committed to the economic ethos of free-labor industrial capitalism. Arguments that slavery was undesirable for the nation had long existed, after 1840, abolitionists denounced slavery as not only a social evil but a moral wrong. Activists in the new Republican Party, usually Northerners, had another view, Southern defenders of slavery, for their part, increasingly came to contend that black people benefited from slavery

Origins of the American Civil War
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The Battle of Fort Sumter was a Confederate attack on a U.S. fort in South Carolina in April 1861. It was the opening battle of the war.
Origins of the American Civil War
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President Andrew Jackson viewed South Carolina's attempts to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 as being tantamount to treason. The issue of states' rights would play a large role leading up to the Civil War near to 30 years later.
Origins of the American Civil War
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Picking cotton in Georgia.
Origins of the American Civil War
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Violent repression of slaves was a common theme in abolitionist literature in the North. Above, this famous 1863 photo of a slave, Gordon, deeply scarred from whipping by an overseer was distributed by abolitionists to illustrate what they saw as the barbarism of Southern society.

19.
Peace Conference of 1861
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The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of 131 leading United States politicians in February 1861, at the Willards Hotel in Washington, D. C. on the eve of the American Civil War. The success of President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party in the elections of 1860 led to a flurry of political activity. In much of the South, elections were held to select delegates to special conventions empowered to consider secession from the Union. In Congress, efforts were made in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to reach compromise over the issues relating to slavery that were dividing the nation, the conference was the final effort by the individual states to resolve the crisis. In December 1860 the final session of the Thirty-sixth Congress met, in the House, the Committee of Thirty-Three, led by Ohio Republican Thomas Corwin, was formed in order to reach a compromise to preserve the Union. In the Senate, former Kentucky Whig John J. Crittenden, elected as a Unionist candidate, hopes were high, especially in the Border States, that the lame duck Congress could reach a successful resolution before the new Republican administration took office. Crittendens proposals were debated by a specially selected Committee of Thirteen, Lincoln made known his objections, and the Compromise was rejected by the committee on December 22 by a vote of 7–6. Crittenden later brought the issue to the floor of the Senate as a proposal to have his compromise made subject to a national referendum, a version of their work was rejected by the House on January 7. This latter proposal would result in a de facto extension of the Missouri Compromise line for all existing territories below the line, a fourth avenue towards compromise came from the state of Virginia. Later Tyler was a delegate to the Virginia convention called to consider whether or not to follow the deep South states out of the Union. Thomas Corwin agreed to hold off any final vote on his House plan pending the final actions of the Peace Conference, no delegates were sent by the Deep South states, or by Arkansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Oregon. Fourteen free states and seven states were represented. Many of the came in the belief that they could be successful. Because many of the 131 delegates qualified as senior statesmen, the meeting was frequently referred to derisively as the Old Gentlemans Convention, on February 6 a separate committee charged with drafting a proposal for the entire convention to consider was formed. The committee consisted of one representative from state and was headed by James Guthrie. The entire convention met for three weeks, and its product was a proposed seven point constitutional amendment that differed little from the Crittenden Compromise. The key issue, slavery in the territories, was addressed simply by extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific coast with no provision for newly acquired territory and this section barely passed by a 9–8 vote of the states. Key sections of this amendment could only be amended with the concurrence of all of the states

Peace Conference of 1861
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Washington D.C.'s Willard's Hotel (1853) was the site of the unsuccessful 1861 Peace Conference

20.
Reconstruction Amendments
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The amendments were important in implementing the Reconstruction of the American South after the war. The Fourteenth Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons, the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This amendment did not include a prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex, it took another amendment—the Nineteenth. These amendments were intended to guarantee freedom to slaves and to establish and prevent discrimination in civil rights to former slaves. The promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions over the course of the 19th century, women were prohibited by some state constitutions and laws from voting, leading to Susan B. Anthony attempting to vote in New York in the 1872 Presidential election as an act of civil disobedience, in 1876 and later, some states passed Jim Crow laws that limited the rights of African-Americans. Ferguson in 1896 which originated the phrase separate but equal and gave approval to Jim Crow laws. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the U. S. Senate on April 8,1864, and, after one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on January 31,1865. The measure was swiftly ratified by all but three Union states, and by a sufficient number of border and reconstructed Southern states, to be ratified by December 6,1865. On December 18,1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed it to have incorporated into the federal Constitution. It became part of the Constitution 61 years after the Twelfth Amendment and this is the longest interval between constitutional amendments to date. Although many slaves had been declared free by Lincolns 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was proposed by Congress on June 13,1866. By July 9,1868, it had received ratifications by the legislatures of the number of states in order to officially become the Fourteenth Amendment. On July 20,1868, Secretary of State William Seward certified that it had been ratified and added to the federal Constitution, the amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to treatment of freedmen following the war. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by Southern states, which were forced to ratify it in order to return their delegations to Congress, the second, third, and fourth sections of the amendment are seldom, if ever, litigated. The fifth section gives Congress enforcement power, the amendments first section includes several clauses, the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. The Privileges or Immunities Clause has been interpreted in such a way that it very little

Reconstruction Amendments
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A political cartoon of Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln, 1865, entitled "The Rail Splitter At Work Repairing the Union." The caption reads (Johnson): Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever. (Lincoln): A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended.
Reconstruction Amendments
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Text of the 13th Amendment

21.
Slave states and free states
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Historically, slavery had been practiced in all the British colonies. The division between slave and free states began during the American Revolution, slavery was a divisive issue and was the primary cause of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, slavery was legal and practiced in each of the Thirteen Colonies that became the US. During British colonization, the population expanded, primarily drawn from the Atlantic slave trade. Organized political and social movements to end slavery began in the mid-18th century, the sentiments of the American Revolution and the equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence stood in contrast to the status of most black Americans. Despite this, thousands of black Americans fought against the British in hopes of a new order, thousands also joined the British army, encouraged by British offers of freedom in exchange for military service. In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom, five of the Northern self-declared states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, while it was independent. These state jurisdictions enacted the first abolition laws in the Americas. By 1804, all of the states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it. In the south, Kentucky was created a state from Virginia. By 1804, before the creation of new states from the western territories. In popular usage, the divide between the slave and free states was called the Mason–Dixon line. The 1787, United States Constitutional Convention debated slavery and for a time slavery was an impediment to passage of the new constitution. As a compromise the institution was acknowledged though never mentioned directly in the constitution, in 1808, the United States outlawed the international slave import trade but the domestic trade in half the states continued. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the U. S, Constitution was ratified, prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory. The southern boundary of the territory was the Ohio River, which was regarded as a extension of the Mason–Dixon line. The territory was settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there

Slave states and free states
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Division of state during the Civil War. Blue represents Union states, including those admitted during the war; light blue represents border states; red represents Confederate states. Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War.
Slave states and free states
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An animation showing the free/slave status of U.S. states and territories, 1789-1861 (see also: separate yearly maps below). The Civil War began in 1861. Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, effective December 1865.

22.
Slavery in the United States
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Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By the time of the American Revolution, the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry, when the United States Constitution was ratified, a relatively small number of free people of color were among the voting citizens. During and immediately following the Revolutionary War, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states, most of these states had a higher proportion of free labor than in the South and economies based on different industries. They abolished slavery by the end of the 18th century, some with gradual systems that kept adults as slaves for two decades. But the rapid expansion of the industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor. Congress during the Jefferson administration prohibited the importation of slaves, effective in 1808, domestic slave trading, however, continued at a rapid pace, driven by labor demands from the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. More than one million slaves were sold from the Upper South, which had a surplus of labor, New communities of African-American culture were developed in the Deep South, and the total slave population in the South eventually reached 4 million before liberation. As the West was developed for settlement, the Southern state governments wanted to keep a balance between the number of slave and free states to maintain a balance of power in Congress. The new territories acquired from Britain, France, and Mexico were the subject of major political compromises, by 1850, the newly rich cotton-growing South was threatening to secede from the Union, and tensions continued to rise. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, the first six states to secede held the greatest number of slaves in the South. Shortly after, the Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the US Armys Fort Sumter, four additional slave states then seceded. In the early years of the Chesapeake Bay settlements, colonial officials found it difficult to attract and retain laborers under the frontier conditions. Most laborers came from Britain as indentured servants, having signed contracts of indenture to pay with work for their passage, their upkeep and training and these indentured servants were young people who intended to become permanent residents. In some cases, convicted criminals were transported to the colonies as indentured servants, the indentured servants were not slaves, but were required to work for four to seven years in Virginia to pay the cost of their passage and maintenance. Historians estimate that more than half of all immigrants to the English colonies of North America during the 17th and 18th centuries came as indentured servants. The number of indentured servants among immigrants was particularly high in the South, many Germans, Scots-Irish, and Irish came to the colonies in the 18th century, settling in the backcountry of Pennsylvania and further south. The planters in the South found that the problem with indentured servants was that many left after several years, just when they had become skilled. In addition, an economy in England in the late 17th

Slavery in the United States
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Slave auction block, Green Hill Plantation, Campbell County, Virginia, Historic American Buildings Survey
Slavery in the United States
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An animation showing when United States territories and states forbade or allowed slavery, 1789–1861.
Slavery in the United States
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Slaves processing tobacco in 17th-century Virginia
Slavery in the United States
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Slaves on a South Carolina plantation (The Old Plantation, c. 1790)

23.
Union (American Civil War)
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The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States, or the Confederacy. All of the Unions states provided soldiers for the U. S. Army, the Border states played a major role as a supply base for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The Northeast provided the resources for a mechanized war producing large quantities of munitions and supplies. The Midwest provided soldiers, food, horses, financial support, Army hospitals were set up across the Union. Most states had Republican governors who energetically supported the war effort, the Democratic Party strongly supported the war in 1861 but in 1862 was split between the War Democrats and the anti-war element led by the Copperheads. The Democrats made major gains in 1862 in state elections. They lost ground in 1863, especially in Ohio, in 1864 the Republicans campaigned under the National Union Party banner, which attracted many War Democrats and soldiers and scored a landslide victory for Lincoln and his entire ticket. The war years were quite prosperous except where serious fighting and guerrilla warfare took place along the southern border, prosperity was stimulated by heavy government spending and the creation of an entirely new national banking system. The Union states invested a great deal of money and effort in organizing psychological and social support for soldiers wives, widows, orphans, and for the soldiers themselves. Most soldiers were volunteers, although after 1862 many volunteered to escape the draft, Draft resistance was notable in some larger cities, especially New York City with its massive anti-draft riots of 1863 and in some remote districts such as the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania. In the context of the American Civil War, the Union is sometimes referred to as the North, both then and now, as opposed to the Confederacy, which was the South. The Union never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacys secession and maintained at all times that it remained entirely a part of the United States of America, in foreign affairs the Union was the only side recognized by all other nations, none of which officially recognized the Confederate government. The term Union occurs in the first governing document of the United States, the subsequent Constitution of 1787 was issued and ratified in the name not of the states, but of We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Union, for the United States of America, is repeated in such clauses as the Admission to the Union clause in Article IV. Even before the war started, the preserve the Union was commonplace. Using the term Union to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the political entity. In comparison to the Confederacy, the Union had a large industrialized and urbanized area, additionally, the Union states had a manpower advantage of 5 to 2 at the start of the war. Year by year, the Confederacy shrank and lost control of increasing quantities of resources, meanwhile, the Union turned its growing potential advantage into a much stronger military force

Union (American Civil War)
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Charleston Mercury Secession Broadside, 1860 - "The Union" had been a way to refer to the American Republic
Union (American Civil War)
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Map of the division of the states during the American Civil War. Blue (the U.S. Army's uniform color) indicates the Union states; light blue represents Union states which permitted slavery (border states). Red represents states in rebellion, also known as the Confederate states. Unshaded areas were U.S. territories.
Union (American Civil War)
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The Union had large advantages in men and resources at the start of the war; the ratio grew steadily in favor of the Union. In the chart, "cauc men" means white men.
Union (American Civil War)
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An anti-Lincoln Copperhead pamphlet from 1864

24.
United States presidential election, 1864
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The United States presidential election of 1864 was the 20th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8,1864. In this match, incumbent president Republican Abraham Lincoln ran for re-election against Democratic candidate George B, McClellan, who tried to portray himself to the voters as the peace candidate who wanted to bring the American Civil War to a speedy end. Lincoln was re-elected president by a landslide in the Electoral College, since the election of 1860, the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states. As the Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the southern states that had joined the Confederate States of America. The second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln took place on March 4,1865, Lincolns second term is the second shortest term served by any U. S. president, next to the 31-day presidency of William Henry Harrison. The Presidential election of 1864 took place during the American Civil War, according to the Miller Center for the study of the presidency, the election was noteworthy for occurring at all, an unprecedented democratic exercise in the midst of a civil war. A group of Republican dissidents who called themselves Radical Republicans formed a party named the Radical Democracy Party, Frémont as their candidate for president. Frémont later withdrew and endorsed Lincoln, in the Border States, War Democrats joined with Republicans as the National Union Party, with Lincoln at the head of the ticket. The National Union Party was a name used to attract War Democrats. It faced off against the regular Democratic Party, including Peace Democrats, the 1864 presidential election conventions of the parties are considered below in order of the partys popular vote. Senators Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson from Massachusetts wanted the Republican Party to advocate constitutional amendments to prohibit slavery, initially, not all northern Republicans supported such measures. Democratic leaders hoped that the radical Republicans would put forth their own ticket in the election, Frémont supporters in New York City established a newspaper called the New Nation, which declared in one of its initial issues that the National Union Convention would be a nonentity. Before the election, some War Democrats joined the Republicans to form the National Union Party, the party platform included these goals. It also praised the use of troops and Lincolns management of the war. Andrew Johnson, the senator from and current military governor of Tennessee, was named as Lincolns vice presidential running-mate. Moderate Peace Democrats who supported the war against the Confederacy, such as Horatio Seymour, were preaching the wisdom of a negotiated peace, after the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, moderate Peace Democrats proposed a negotiated peace that would secure Union victory. They believed this was the best course of action, because an armistice could finish the war without devastating the South. Radical Peace Democrats known as Copperheads, such as Thomas H. Seymour, declared the war to be a failure, George B. McClellan vied for the presidential nomination